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Monday, 17 April 2017

A Slice Of Wedding

In the way that a wedding cake, or cheese if you prefer, is a whole, of which one has a slice, this is my version, my slice of wedding. It starts well before the day, with making syrups and painting signs, but this writing will begin the night before, with Mr and me and three little granddaughters.

The littlest, Grandchild 5, is teething. Grandad is sent to the sofa, so one of us will be alert enough to drive to the venue. In-between her gnashing of bumpy gums comes adorable cuddles, like she is saying thank you, and admirable wind. At 3:30am magic exhaustion kicks in.

At 6:27am Grandchildren 2 and 3 appear, complaining that they cannot sleep.

Granma says: ‘Go jump on Grandad.’

6:35am Grandchild 2 returns to complain that Grandchild 3 has snotted on the carpet, closely followed by Grandchild 3: ‘But I’ve cleaned it up, Granma!’

Granma says: ‘Go jump on Grandad.’

Grandchild 5 opens her sparkly fresh eyes.

Granma says: ‘Coffee.’

Bless her, she can’t remember where she’s put anything, but somehow coffee, breakfast, clothes, a packed car, it all happens. (Grandad did help.)

En route, the girls want to play car games. Granma daydreams of a nap. The sky is blue-grey, soft, almost sunny. The venue is an old mill turned hostelry, white and wood and calm, perfect for napping. Only by now it’s all too exciting. Grandsons and their cousins tricked out in bow ties, waistcoats, looking like a barbershop quartet. Grandchild 2 explains her dress as ‘purple and like this’ (hands make parallel vertical lines) ‘then it goes POUF!’

They’ve heard there’s an egg hunt and can’t wait to get started - what’s all this nonsense about sitting through a ceremony first?

Granma says: ‘You will be awake, and smiling, if you want eggs. It’s called a bribe.’

Here comes Mr, walking his youngest daughter through the bright room, and it is no surprise that she is beautiful and glowing, but it makes us cry. We don’t mean to, the tears are suddenly there, warmly overflowing. It is a ritual, yet not too formal - a naturalness to it, a sort of relaxed perfection.

Vows and rings exchanged, we follow the newly wedded out - children disappear and pop back, and disappear, each time a little more smudged in grass and chocolate, shirts untucked, shoes abandoned - they run up and down the path yelling ‘SUGAR!!!!’

Grown-ups reply: ‘Alcohol!!!’

Everyone happy. Even during the speeches, which are not always a highlight, but here are done without glibness, they make us smile. It’s the hijacking of the speech that is my icing on this slice, however - when the Best Man’s son, the youngest nephew of the Groom, is loitering, and given the microphone, an opportunity to say whatever it is that’s making him hover so.

He says: ‘I love ponies.’

For the record, the young man is a keen horse rider.

That wasn’t the end of the day, of course, but that’s the bit I wanted to share. And that on the way home, bamboozled by satnav decisions, we saw a jaybird, a rare specimen, then two ponies with glittery hooves.